Shudder
by easytodancewith
Summary: Audrey/Brooke. When Brooke says "Do me a solid: Do not let the unwashed masses into this house," Audrey's initial reaction should be "F**k you," but what comes out of her mouth instead is "Aye-aye, Captain." (Another 1x10 fic.)


Generally speaking, Audrey's not the order-taking type. She doesn't dress the way she should, doesn't wear her hair like she should, doesn't date who she should and, more to the point, doesn't care about the people who are _dictating_ the shoulds - the "us" to her "them," the insiders who leave her on the sidelines. Turns out she _likes_ the sidelines.

So when Brooke tells her, "Do me a solid: Do not let the unwashed masses into this house," Audrey's initial reaction should be "Fuck you." At this point, "Fuck you" is basically her entire _aesthetic_ , but what comes out of her mouth instead is "Aye-aye, Captain" - which, first of all, what the fuck, and second of all, what the _fuck_?

Before Audrey has a chance to mentally regroup from whatever the hell just happened, Brooke responds with a mock salute and a flash of her too-white teeth, then disappears through a side door. Audrey expects to feel annoyed - annoyed with herself, annoyed with the girl she straight-up _hated_ until fairly recently - but instead, she finds herself grinning. She's Brooke's guard dog now.

Why the fuck is she OK with that?

 **xXx**

"Where do you think you're going?" Audrey demands, standing protectively in front of the door as a kid she saw clamber out of the pool a few seconds earlier makes a beeline for the house.

"I just gotta hit the head," the kid replies, sounding confused.

"You're soaking wet. Hit the head in the pool house," Audrey says firmly, and, yeah, this time _she's_ the one giving the orders.

"Whatever, bitch," he responds, retreating while she stands immobile, her arms crossed over her chest.

Given the way Jake reacted to Brooke randomly macking on some kid in board shorts, Audrey's hardly surprised he'd try to follow her. While she was dealing with the wet kid, she saw Jake stride purposefully toward a different area of the house, but even guard dogs can't be in two places at once. By the time she's able to go after him, he's nowhere to be found. The Maddoxes _would_ have like five different doors to their backyard, so she figures he slipped by her. _Damn it_.

She thinks for a second, then remembers she'd heard Brooke talking about wine to the kid with the shorts. She'd be _really_ surprised if a house like Brooke's didn't have a wine cellar, so she's, like, obligated to get there before Jake does, right?

She's only following orders.

 **xXx**

Audrey locates the wine cellar by slipping through the very door she was told to guard and heading in the direction of Brooke's raised voice.

"I _knew_ you were spying on me!" Brooke yells, and Audrey's gonna go ahead and acknowledge that she epically failed at the whole keeping-people-out-of-the-house thing.

"I was just looking out for you!" Jake protests.

Audrey rolls her eyes. Like, dude, at least come up with something original.

"You mean looking out for my boobs?" Brooke shoots back, and Audrey can't help but smile as she wanders through the sub-ground level of the Maddox house. She's actually kind of glad she didn't get to the other girl first - Brooke can handle herself just fine.

"The spyware was deleted, and then somebody put it back up," Jake explains, and his voice sounds closer now. (Seriously, whose basement is big enough to have _wings_?) "I was just trying to figure out who."

"OK, then why not just tell me that, Jake?" Brooke demands.

Jake's genius comeback is "Because I'm a jackass," and although Audrey finally finds the damn wine cellar, she waits outside to hear how Brooke responds. "And maybe I wanted to see your boobs," he admits.

"I'm sure you've seen plenty," Brooke says frostily. "Get out."

"Brooke, come on, I don't wanna fight with you, I just -"

Audrey steps into the doorway, and Jake turns toward the sound.

"She said get out, Jake."

Audrey's using her hard tone, her _fuck you_ tone, the tone that's become her default for most interactions these days, and Jake holds up his hands.

"Fine," he says coldly. He's trying to match her affect, but he hasn't had as much practice.

Audrey glares at him until he passes through the doorway. She barely resists the urge to bump him with her elbow.

 **xXx**

As Jake's footfalls get fainter, Audrey sees the ice fade from Brooke's eyes. The other girl looks hurt and sad and, yeah, _vulnerable_ , all of which would be totally unacceptable for her public persona. Audrey feels the need to turn away for modesty's sake, as if she, like Jake, has seen the other girl naked.

"Don't," Brooke says. Her voice sounds strained, huskier than usual.

Audrey glances back at her. "Don't what? Go?"

"Yeah."

"OK…" Audrey's not great at the whole comforting thing, but she's a _master_ at using humor to redirect a conversation. "Uh, want me to help you pick out a criminally expensive wine to waste on that kid with the shorts?"

Brooke actually laughs, which Audrey counts as a small triumph.

"No. He wasn't even hot." She manages a smile. "And I feel like he's more of the beer type."

"True." As Audrey leans against the doorframe, her hip touches the burnished wood of one of the wine racks. Seriously, who needs this much wine? "You're too good for him, anyway."

Brooke eyes her levelly for a few seconds but doesn't respond.

"What?" Audrey asks a little defensively, shifting her weight to her other foot. "I'm just saying."

"Remember when I asked if you were flirting with me earlier?"

Audrey shudders internally as she feels a knot form in her stomach. She knew showing a friendlier side of herself to Brooke would backfire sooner rather than later. "Yeah?"

"Were you?"

It would be so easy for Audrey to deflect the question with a _You wish_ -type retort like the first time, but something about the directness of Brooke's tone and the intensity of the other girl's gaze makes her pause.

"You want the honest answer?" she asks instead.

(Yeah, she's answering a question with another question, but she's not shooting it down entirely so, hey, baby steps.)

"The one thing that's apparently in short supply around here is honesty," Brooke says wryly, and Audrey thinks that means yes.

"OK, then: I don't know."

Brooke tilts her head.

"I'm serious. Since Rachel, since everything, it's like I know even less than I…" She trails off, still jarred by the finality of Rachel's death all these weeks later. "And, I mean, Rach was so sure, you know? She knew she was a lesbian since she was like, 12. It's not always that easy. Not everyone just wakes up one day with all the answers."

"So that's why you're not doing the label thing?" Brooke asks quietly. She's showing her real human side again, and it's throwing Audrey off.

"I don't _know_."

Audrey hates when people try to back her into a corner over this, and the words come out more harshly than intended. She takes a deep breath.

"I just don't know yet, OK? I don't have an answer for you. I don't have an answer for _me_."

Brooke has this expression on her face like she doesn't understand but she wants to, and Audrey kind of feels like crawling out of her own skin, so she changes the subject.

"Look, I'm sorry I let Jake slip by; there was this douchebag who was dripping water all over everywhere, so I was telling him to go use the bathroom in the pool house and -"

"It's OK," Brooke cuts her off.

"I guess maybe it was good you got to talk to him. Like, to get his side of the story." Audrey smiles ruefully. "Even though he turned out to be a jackass."

Brooke offers her a tentative smile in return. "I meant about flirting with me."

Something inside Audrey shudders a soundless _oh_.

"I know you're still figuring stuff out," Brooke continues, "but it's OK if you were. Or if you weren't, you know? It's whatever."

Audrey doesn't know what she was expecting Brooke to say, but it wasn't that. She's honestly not sure how to respond, so she doesn't.

"Just don't trick me into downloading spyware onto my laptop so you can see my boobs," Brooke warns with laughter in her voice and sadness in her eyes.

"Aye-aye, Captain," Audrey repeats, hoping her blush isn't as obvious as it feels, and Brooke rewards her with that brilliant smile.

"Hey, how about I get that wine I was gonna share with Board Shorts? Let's drink it _allll_ by ourselves upstairs."

"Sounds like a plan," Audrey says confidently, doing her best to ignore the skip in her heartbeat. "But I'm gonna need your help to find my way out of here."

"I'll give you a copy of the map," Brooke tells her drily, and Audrey laughs in spite of herself. Their dynamic doesn't feel like us-versus-them anymore, and although the shift isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's kinda freaking her out.

"Hey, can Human You stick around a while longer?" Audrey asks against her better judgment. "I really like her."

Brooke grabs a bottle and places her free hand on the small of Audrey's back, guiding her forward.

"Take a left up here. And, yeah, I think that could be arranged."


End file.
